INTELLIGENT GREEN TECHNOLOGY
VMware cloud application aids
remote healthcare in Uganda
In Malawi Josh Nesbit, a premed student, realised he could use the ubiquitous
cellular network and cloud applications to improve healthcare in Africa.
I
n the mountain highlands
of western Uganda, Kikanda
Batelemao, a community health
worker, walks along a rugged dirt road
to visit Florence Mbambu, a pregnant
woman living more than 35 miles from
the nearest health clinic. With every
step he takes, he is helping to lead a
healthcare revolution, a revolution that
is transforming healthcare delivery in
some of the poorest and most remote
places on earth.
In his pocket, Kikanda carries an old
cellphone, but on that simple phone he
carries the means to bring new hope to
the patients he visits. That phone carries
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with it the possibility to make healthcare
accessible to everyone, no matter where
they live or how little money they make.
The ratio of doctors to patients is
just 1:100,000. Paved roads are few
and far between. Electricity is a luxury
enjoyed by only a few. But almost
everyone, in even the tiniest and most
remote villages, owns a cellphone.
And cellphone towers are ubiquitous,
marching across the landscape in every
direction.
For Josh Nesbit, a premed student
working one summer at a clinic in
Malawi, Africa, the sight of those cell
towers would change his life. As he
watched pregnant women walk 50 miles
or more to see the single doctor in his
rural clinic, he also noticed that his
cellphone got better reception than it did
in San Francisco.
Nesbit realised he could use that
insight to fundamentally transform and
improve healthcare delivery in Africa
and other developing nations. The result
of that epiphany is Medic Mobile, the
organisation Nesbit co-founded after
returning to the United States in 2009.
“There are a billion people who lack
access to healthcare. There are 300,000
women who will die in childbirth this
year. And there are at least 10 countries
Issue 01
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS